chest pin presses

Ive been looking around on this subject because overhead pin presses always seem to help out my triceps when I think they start to lag, but what about swapping flat bench out with pin preses right above the chest. The stuff I did come across on here pertaining to it always seems to be either about it causiing shoulder problems or using it to break strength plateaus, any verdict on whether it helps chest size?

i tried pin presses for a few weeks from about a few inches from my chest and they bothered my shoulders, and i couldnt do as many reps with the same weight as with paused bench my shoulders haven't ever been bothered by any lifts before, so that was weird for me, and i don't even lift alot to start with i didnt stay with it for very long to see any progress, i did do paused bench for 2 months on 5/3/1, and it worked very well by my standards

For me low pin presses are a recipe for a shoulder or pec injury. There's no reason to think it will help with chest size any more than simply doing paused reps. Even with paused reps, they will only help with chest size with the appropriate technique. I would prefer to do other, safer, exercises specifically for the pecs than manipulation the bench press too much.

I used them exclusively when I was powerlifting. In my theory a lot of the soreness comes from two things. Number your flexibility to start in the range of motion is usually limited. When I started working on opening up my shoulders with mobility before and static stretching after it started to help. Here is the other factor most miss out on. Muscles are connected to the bones through tendons. They are very important in strength. They are the transfer of power to from the muscle to the bone to create movement. does that make sense? The body coming from a static position that is not normally static has not built the tendons for that kind of abuse. The body is going HUH?!? One needs to train before training that methodology. When I first got into using rack presses, rack squats (movements that dont start static) I benched or squated normally for lower reps (which is the connective tissue you want to handle for this style.. you can strengthen tendons different just like muscles but this is your goal for now) After that start with say 70-80% of your 1RM of normal pause bench. Do a couple of sets say 5 or so of SINGLES. I do not think do lots of reps on pin presses is good for starting out.. Overloading those tendons again. After a week or 2 up it by 5% and go again. This whole process may take around 8-10 weeks. You may even need to start that percentage lower. We are built on rushing things as fast as we can. Sometimes you need to slow down a bit. Do your nomal lifting heavy but take those pin presses a little slower.

I used them exclusively when I was powerlifting. In my theory a lot of the soreness comes from two things. Number your flexibility to start in the range of motion is usually limited. When I started working on opening up my shoulders with mobility before and static stretching after it started to help. Here is the other factor most miss out on. Muscles are connected to the bones through tendons. They are very important in strength. They are the transfer of power to from the muscle to the bone to create movement. does that make sense? The body coming from a static position that is not normally static has not built the tendons for that kind of abuse. The body is going HUH?!? One needs to train before training that methodology. When I first got into using rack presses, rack squats (movements that dont start static) I benched or squated normally for lower reps (which is the connective tissue you want to handle for this style.. you can strengthen tendons different just like muscles but this is your goal for now) After that start with say 70-80% of your 1RM of normal pause bench. Do a couple of sets say 5 or so of SINGLES. I do not think do lots of reps on pin presses is good for starting out.. Overloading those tendons again. After a week or 2 up it by 5% and go again. This whole process may take around 8-10 weeks. You may even need to start that percentage lower. We are built on rushing things as fast as we can. Sometimes you need to slow down a bit. Do your nomal lifting heavy but take those pin presses a little slower.

Thanks for the input, it makes a hell of a lot of sense what you just explained.

For me low pin presses are a recipe for a shoulder or pec injury. There's no reason to think it will help with chest size any more than simply doing paused reps. Even with paused reps, they will only help with chest size with the appropriate technique. I would prefer to do other, safer, exercises specifically for the pecs than manipulation the bench press too much.

Couldn't the shoulder strain just be due to setting the pins too low? They say that if you bring the bar down past where your upper arms are parallel to the ground that you're over involving your shoulders. So if you set the pins to where your arms are parallel with the floor it might not cause shoulder injury.

Couldn't the shoulder strain just be due to setting the pins too low? They say that if you bring the bar down past where your upper arms are parallel to the ground that you're over involving your shoulders. So if you set the pins to where your arms are parallel with the floor it might not cause shoulder injury.

Benching from pins should cause less tendon issues if the form stays the same. It should be the same as pause bench presses. It created more muscular stress because it is removing the stretch shortening cycle, thus your tendons are not able to help accelerate out of the bottom portion. Force = Mass x Acceleration. If you are lowering a weight, there is a large acceleration that takes place in order to change the direction of the weight. If you just go from pins this force will be less due to a smaller acceleration.